Odd alliance: Governor calls on former foes for help, votes

The campaign to pass Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's new special election ballot agenda figures to look a lot like the effort that demolished his last one.

In 2005, Schwarzenegger was pummeled by a relentless television advertising campaign featuring teachers, police officers, firefighters and nurses denouncing the governor's “reform agenda” that went down to a crushing defeat in a November special election.

This year, with the governor's approval rating at rock bottom, the Schwarzenegger-led campaign to pass six budget-related ballot propositions in the May 19 special election plans to turn to teachers, police officer, firefighters and nurses.

“The teachers who are going to lose their jobs, the members of law enforcement whose resources are being cut and safety is being threatened, the families who are losing their jobs, every person who is suffering in the current economic recession is a good spokesperson for budget reform,” said Schwarzenegger political strategist Adam Mendelsohn.

Even if he is not a visible presence in the advertising campaign, Schwarzenegger vows to spend the next month campaigning tirelessly for Propositions 1A through 1F.

“I'm going to work day and night, up and down the state, to communicate with the people,” the Republican governor said at an event in Fresno last week.

But Schwarzenegger's salesmanship ability is severely limited because the budget crisis that the propositions are supposed to remedy has driven his popularity to a record low.

A poll by the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California last month showed that only 32 percent of likely special election voters approve of the job the Republican governor is doing. Approval of the Democratic-controlled Legislature is even lower at 18 percent.

“His basic campaign model is to say this is a bipartisan approach for the governor and the Legislature and is strongly supported by corporate California as well as the unions that represent workers and there's an enormous consensus so vote 'Yes,' ” said Democratic strategist Bill Carrick. “The problem with that is a lot of people are blaming those folks for the problem.”

Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California, agreed.

“A message that at its core is about preventing politicians from spending too much is not a message that can be carried by politicians,” said Schnur, a former Republican political consultant. “He was able to carry a very similar message as an outsider when he ran for governor (in 2003). But two-term governors and veteran legislators can't be outsiders.”

Schwarzenegger and the Legislature finally ended a three-month budget impasse in February with a deal designed to wipe out a deficit projected at nearly $42 billion with deep spending reductions, tax increases and borrowing.

The agreement is contingent upon voter approval of most of the six ballot propositions:

Proposition 1A would limit future state spending and requires a larger reserve fund. It also extends temporary two-year tax increases approved in the budget deal for another two years – or an additional $16 billion in taxes.